The Easiest Slow Cooker Christmas Ham

The easiest slow cooker Christmas ham or gammon, lightly spiced and served with a refreshing red cabbage salad!

When it comes to Christmas cooking I’m all about making life as easy as possible for myself. If you have guests staying you want to make delicious food for them, but not at the cost of spending all your time in the kitchen and missing out on the festivities. And this is why I LOVE this Christmas Ham or Christmas Gammon, whichever you like to call it. It’s an absolute doddle to make. The ham will pretty much look after itself, allowing you to get on with the last of your Christmas shopping or entertaining friends and family.

If you don’t have a slow cooker, fear not as this recipe will work on the hob too. The general rule for cooking ham on the hob is to bring it to the boil and then simmer for 20 minutes per 500g, but you can check that exact cooking times with your butcher (or supermarket ham should come with cooking instructions too).

For a 2kg ham I recommend 6-8 hours in the slow cooker. If you want to carve your ham then stick closer to the 6 hours but if you prefer it more crumbly, almost like pulled pork, then cook it for up to 8 hours.

Not only is this ham recipe a doddle to cook, but it’s so versatile too. I cooked it last year for Christmas Eve dinner and served it with my red cabbage salad and some crusty rolls. If you have family arriving at different times then this is a brilliant dinner to have waiting. People can help themselves as and when they arrive. Your guests get a delicious filling meal but you don’t have to spend all day slaving in the kitchen. Perfect!

If you plan to serve this on Christmas Day then you can cook the ham the day before, allow it to cool and keep it in the fridge overnight. Then the following day simply whack on the glaze and warm it up in the oven. So simple!

I’ve kept the spice flavours in this recipe very mild to make sure it’s still appealing to little taste buds. If you are cooking for adults only feel free to add more flavours to the cooking liquid and also to the glaze.

The Easiest Slow Cooker Christmas Ham

Description

The easiest slow cooker Christmas ham, lightly spiced and served with a refreshing red cabbage salad

Ingredients

For the ham:

2 – 2.5kg gammon

1 or 2 white onions

1 litre / 4 cups apple juice

10 black peppercorns

5 whole cloves

2 star anise

2 bay leaves

For the salad:

1 red cabbage

2 red apples

2 small carrots

3 spring onions

seeds from 1/2 pomegranate

3 tbsp cider vinegar

6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

juice of 1/2 lemon

salt and pepper to taste

parsley to garnish

For the ham glaze:

handful of whole cloves

4 tbsp honey

1 1/2 tbsp dijon mustard

1 tbsp sugar (I used coconut sugar but brown sugar would work well too)

1/2 tsp all spice

Instructions

Cut the onion in half and place both pieces on the bottom of the slow cooker. Sit the gammon on top of the onions, fat side up. This will prevent it sticking as it cooks. Pour in the apple juice and add the peppercorns, cloves, star anise and bay leaves. Cook on low for 6-8 hours, depending on how crumbly you want your ham to be.

Prepare the salad by chopping the red cabbage, apples and spring onions into small pieces. Add the grated carrot and pomegranate seeds and mix well. Make the dressing by mixing the cider vinegar, olive oil, lemon juice and salt and pepper together in a lidded jar or bottle and shake well. Add the dressing to the salad just before serving.

When the ham has cooked remove it from the slow cooker and rest it on a plate for a few minutes to allow the liquid to drain away. Preheat the oven to 220c and double line a baking tin with foil (don’t skip this as the honey glaze will burn into your baking tray and it’s a nightmare to get off!)

Transfer the ham to the lined tray. Remove the skin with a sharp knife leaving a layer of fat on top. Score the fat and stud it with whole cloves.

Make the glaze by mixing all the ingredients together in a bowl. Pour half the glaze onto the fatty part of the ham, spreading it around until the top is fully covered.

Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes, adding the remaining glaze half way through.

I cooked this overnight and it was so easy on Christmas morning to simply glaze – It’s delicious (I had a sneaky taste) – the children are going to love it! So easy in the slow cooker over night on low (I usually wake up through the night was able to turn it off after 6 hours)

Dear Ciara – I cannot thank you enough for this amazing recipe – super easy, fragrant and tasty! This was my first attempt at cooking an uncooked, unsmoked brined ham. I’m a French Canadian and so smoked hams and pork roasts are very common here, but I was never a fan; Thanks to you, I can now say that I looove ham (and the boyfriend is happy about that!)! I doubled the spices, cooked it in my large crock pot for 6.5 hours (note: my ham was 6kg), then transferred it into the oven at 430F with your succulent glaze and voila! I will never cook ham any other way… it is simply sublime. Merci!!!!

I’m going to admit I didn’t make this in a slow cooker, I cooked it in my electric pressure cooker. 750g ham for 20 ish minutes. Then did the glaze in the oven and served with the salad.

It was amazing. Genuinely one of the best online recipes I’ve come across and my husband already wants me to make it again. I don’t make a lot of recipes more than once but this will 100% be in the rotation.

Please could you tell me if the ham is easy to carve, I do not want the “pulled pork” texture you get from slow cooking pork, I just want to be able to carve slices as and when over Christmas – can anyone help please?

This is a long shot but I’m really stuck trying to find cook times for slow cookers. I have 6.8kg gammon to cook for new years. I have two slow cookers and would like to half the gammon and follow this recipe.

This looks like a wonderful way to Cook a ham. Our ham is 2.6 kg and just about fits into the slow cooker. 1/2 a litre of apple Juice seems enough or does the apple juice need to cover the ham? Also given the size can I cook it on high so as to get it cooked in 6-8 hours or will it need to cook longer on low? Many thanks and merry Christmas 🙂 xx

I can’t believe that I’ve never cooked a ham in the slow cooker! I bet it’s meltingly delicious. (Is meltingly even a word? It should be..) This is such a great idea, thanks so much for sharing. The salad looks so festive and fresh too. Delicious.